Eli (name)

Eli

Pronunciation	English: /ˈiːlaɪ/ Hebrew: [ˈeli] Danish: [ˈe̝ːli]
Gender	Male
Language(s)	Hebrew, English, Norwegian, Danish, Spanish
Origin
Word/name	Biblical עֵלִי
Meaning	ascent; my God
Other names
Related names	Elijah, Elias, Elisha, Eliezer, Elimelech

Eli as a name has two different meanings, both originating in the Hebrew Bible.

Eli can be used for males (Hebrew tradition) or females (Scandinavian tradition). Hebrew origin, from Biblical עֵלִי "ascent", spelled with the Hebrew letter ayin in the beginning, the name of Eli, the high priest in the Books of Samuel. It is identical to the Arabic name Ali (علي).^[1] It came to be used as a given name among the Puritans in the 17th century and was by them taken to the American colonies.^[2]

Eli may alternatively be an unrelated abbreviation of Hebrew names^[3] such as Elijah, Elias, Elisha, Eliezer, Elimelech, etc., all containing the element אלי, meaning "my God" and spelled with the Hebrew letter aleph in the beginning. El is the name of a Semitic deity that is used in the Bible as a name for the god of the Israelites, and -i is the suffix for the genitive form ("mine").

In the United States, the popularity of the given name Eli was hovering around rank 200 in the 1880s. It declined gradually during the late 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries, falling below rank 700 in 1964. In a significant revival of the name's popularity in the early 1970s, it bounced back above rank 400 in 1976. Its popularity has continued to grow since then, entering the top 100 masculine given names in the 2000s, and ranking as the 64th most popular boys' name as of 2021.^[4]

Eli is also a short form of names Elisabet, Elin, and Helena in Scandinavia,^[5][6] unrelated to the masculine Hebrew name Eli.^[7] The two names differ in pronunciation as well.

People with the name

• Eli Abaev (born 1998), American-Israeli basketball player
• Eli Abarbanel (Hebrew: אלי אברבנל; born 1976), Israeli footballer
• Eli Abbott (1869–1943), American football player and football and baseball coach
• Eli Amir (אלי עמיר born 1937), Israeli writer and peace activist
• Eli Bebout (born 1946), Wyoming politician
• Eli Beeding (1928-2013), US Air Force captain and rocket test subject
• Eli Biham (אלי ביהם, born 1960), Israeli cryptographer
• Eli M. Black (Elihu) (1921–1975), American businessman
• Eli Whitney Blake (1795–1886), American inventor
• Eli Whitney Blake Jr. (1836–1895), American scientist
• Eli Broad (1933–2021), American billionaire, philanthropist, art collector
• Eli Metcalfe Bruce (1828–1866), philanthropist, financier and politician from Kentucky
• Eli Franklin Burton (1879–1948), Canadian physicist
• Eli Bush (fl. 2000s–2020s), American film and theatre producer
• Eli Cohen (disambiguation), multiple people
• Eli Dasa (born 1992), Israeli footballer for Dynamo Moscow and the Israel national team
• Eli Dershwitz (born 1995), 2023 World Saber Champion, 2015 Under-20 World Saber Champion, U.S. Olympic saber fencer
• Eli Erlick (born 1995), American activist
• Eli Giannini (born 1956), female Australian architect and director of MGS Architects in Melbourne
• Eli Gorenstein (born 1952), Israeli actor, voice actor, singer and cellist
• Eli Heckscher (1879–1952), Swedish economist
• Eli Huston (Houston, in some sources; c. 1799–1835), associate justice of the Supreme Court of Mississippi
• Eli Jones Henkle (1825–1893), U.S. Congressman from Maryland
• Eli Holstein (born 2004), American football player
• Eli Hurvitz (Elihu, 1932-2011), Israeli industrialist
• Eli H. Janney (1831–1912), engineer, Confederate soldier
• Eli King (footballer) (born 2002), Welsh footballer
• Eli C. King (fl. 1820s), American politician who was the third mayor of Columbus, Ohio
• Eli Lancman (1936-2024), Israeli historian
• Eli Langer (born 1967), Canadian artist
• Eli Lilly (1838–1898), American soldier, pharmaceutical chemist, and industrialist, founder of Eli Lilly and Company
• Eli Lilly (industrialist) (1885–1977), American industrialist, grandson of the Colonel
• Eli Long (1837–1903), General in the Union Army in the American Civil War
• Eli Manning (Elisha) (born 1981), American football player, 2-time super bowl MVP
• Eli Mohar (1948–2006), Israeli songwriter and columnist
• Eli Morgan (born 1996), American baseball pitcher for the Cleveland Indians
• Elie Munk (1900–1981), German-born French rabbi and rabbinic scholar
• Eli Noam (born 1946), professor at Columbia University
• Eli M. Oboler (1915–1983), librarian, Idaho State University and writer
• Eli Ohana (אלי אוחנה, born 1964), Israeli football player and coach
• Eli Pemberton (born 1997), American basketball player in the Israeli Basketball Premier League
• Eli "Paperboy" Reed (born 1983), American singer and songwriter
• Eli Thomas Reich (1913–1999), US vice admiral
• Eli Ricks (born 2001), American football player
• Eli Roth (born 1972), American film director
• Eli Salzberger (born 1960), Israeli legal scholar
• Eli Saulsbury (1817–1893), U.S. Senator from Delaware
• Eli Schenkel (born 1992), Canadian Olympic fencer
• Eli Sherbatov (born 1991), Canadian-Israeli ice hockey player
• Eli C. D. Shortridge (1830–1908), Governor of North Dakota
• Eli Siegel (1902–1978), Latvian-American poet, critic and philosopher
• Eli Snyman (born 1996), Zimbabwe-born South African rugby union player
• Eli Soriano (1947-2021), televangelist from the Philippines
• Eli Stefansky (born 1971/72), American-Israeli lecturer
• Eli Stowers, American football player
• Eli Todd Tappan (1824–1888), American educator, mathematician, author, lawyer and newspaper editor
• Eli Terry (1772–1852), inventor and clockmaker in Connecticut
• Eli Thayer (1819–1899), member of the US House of Representatives from Massachusetts
• Eli "Lucky" Thompson (1924–2005), American jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist
• Eli Todd (1769–1833), pioneer in the treatment of the mentally ill in Connecticut
• Eli Velder (1925–2020), American academic
• Eli Walker (born 1992), Welsh rugby union player
• Eli Wallach (1915–2014), movie actor
• Eli L. Whiteley (1913–1986), American awarded the Medal of Honor
• Eli Whitney (1765–1825), American inventor of the cotton gin
• Elie Wiesel (אלי ויזל; Eliezer) (1928-2016), Romanian-born American human rights activist, Holocaust writer
• Eli Wolf (born 1997), American football player
• Elihu Yale (1649–1721), benefactor of Yale University, also known as "Eli Yale"
• Eli Yatzpan (born 1965), Israeli television host and comedian
• Eli Yishai (אליהו "אלי" ישי, Eliyahu, born 1962), Israeli politician
• Eli Zuckerman (born 1973), Israeli Olympic competitive sailor

Fictional characters

• Eli, on Freaks and Geeks
• Eli, from Xena: Warrior Princess
• Eli, the eponymous nomad from the 2009 film The Book of Eli
• Eli, in the Swedish novel Let the Right One In
• Eli Cash, in The Royal Tenenbaums
• Eli Clark, a survivor in the video game Identity V
• Elijah "Eli" Dingle, on the British soap Emmerdale
• Eli Ever, in novels by V.E. Schwab
• Eli Gemstone, on The Righteous Gemstones
• Eli Gold, on The Good Wife
• Eli Loker, on Lie to Me
• Eli Mills, from the film Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
• Eli "Weevil" Navarro on Veronica Mars
• Eli Shane, in Slugterra
• Eli Stone, title character of the American show Eli Stone
• Eli Sunday, in There Will Be Blood
• Elias "Eli" Thompson, on the American television series Boardwalk Empire
• Eli Vance, in the Half-Life video games
• Eli Vanto, in the novel Star Wars: Thrawn
• Eli Wallace, on Stargate Universe
• Eli Watkins, in Oil!
• Eli, known as Liquid Snake, from video game franchise Metal Gear Solid

Surname

• Billy Eli (born 1962), American singer and songwriter
• Look Tin Eli (1870-1919), Chinese-American businessman
• Roger Eli (born 1965), English former footballer

Scandinavian given name

Eli in Scandinavia can also be written as Øli or Ellen.

• Eli Arnstad (born 1962), Norwegian civil servant and politician
• Eli Fischer-Jørgensen (1911-2010), Danish professor and member of the Danish resistance movement
• Eli Kristiansen (born 1933), Norwegian politician
• Eli Rygg (born 1955), Norwegian television personality
• Eli Skolmen Ryg (born 1936), Norwegian television producer
• Eli Sollied Øveraas (born 1949), Norwegian politician

Fictional characters

• Eli Ayase, from the anime Love Live!
• Eli James, a character from the Ghost Whisperer

See also

• Ely (surname)
• Ely (given name)

References

1. Withycombe, E. G. (1976) [1944]. The Concise Dictionary of English Christian Names (3rd ed.). London: Omega Books. ISBN 1-85007-059-8.
2. Royal Ralph Hinman,A catalogue of the names of the first Puritan settlers of the colony of Connecticut, 1846, p. 169 mentions one Eli Bush, born 1741. David Pickering, The Penguin Book of Baby Names, Penguin, 2009. See also babynamespedia.com.
3. Campbell, Mike. "Meaning, origin and history of the name Eli (2)". Behind the Name. Retrieved 2022-07-13.
4. behindthename.com
5. Eli – kvinnenavn, Store Norske Leksikon, visited 20 May 2009
6. Campbell, Mike. "Meaning, origin and history of the name Eli (3)". Behind the Name. Retrieved 2022-07-13.
7. Campbell, Mike. "Meaning, origin and history of the name Eli (1)". Behind the Name. Retrieved 2022-07-13.